Playful Surprise
By Chris | August 12, 2010
Last night, Sabrina Henry and I went to a unique location in Richmond BC, called Finn Slough. If you are into old and aged subjects, this is a very neat place to shoot. It is rich in history and there seems to be some interesting characters living there too.
Anyways, today I want to talk about the above image. It was a “happy mistake”, I think. The over-exposure was intentional. I had done what I don’t usually do just to see “what if?”. I had spot metered the fore-front building. I knew that if I metered with the matrix, it would cast a lot of shadow on the buildings. So, I “lived on the edge” and spot metered the building not expecting to get an over-exposed ugly image. When I first viewed the capture on the LCD viewer, I was not impressed. Actually, I almost deleted it on the spot but I didn’t.
When I got home and reviewed the images in Lightroom 3 the above image turned out to be a pleasant surprise. We had not shot a lot of images that evening because of the disappearing light and because we became involved in conversation with a local resident. Now, I know this area had been photographed before but I wanted to get my own perspective. I like most of us photographers, didn’t want to shoot the same shot somebody else has already done. However, my other shots were exactly that, in my opinion. The same as others. Perhaps, this is why the above image stands out to me. It’s not HDR or B&W. In this case, I think the over-exposed capture works.
Now, I am going to step back a bit and talk about some of the questions that Sabrina has posed to me before we set out to shoot. I felt like I was being interviewed by the FBI with a bright spot light in a dark room. She asked tough questions that were really intended to help me understand myself and my art. Tough questions that help us grow as artists. I thank her for doing so. One of the things that came up was, “Why was I drawn toward a graphic type of image?”. I believe it’s because I think photographs are interesting when they don’t look %100 like a photograph. Or, perhaps, as Sabrina had suggested, maybe it’s because of my fine art background. Maybe.
OK. Now back to the above image. What I felt good about, is that when I first saw it in LR is that it looked like a water colour painting, a graphic, even when straight out of the camera. I did very little treatment in LR. Added a touch of colour saturation and such but what really makes it look like a water colour, in my opinion, is the reflections. It really was a pleasant surprise for me. It’ s not a masterpiece, a human element would have been nice to add but I like it, regardless. I would like to think that I captured an image of Finn Slough that, perhaps, nobody else has. I am really glad that I took a playful chance of a spot meter instead of my usual matrix meter.
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Chasing Reflections
By Chris | July 29, 2010
When I first downloaded Eli Reinholdtsen’s new eBook, honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I figured, what could one possibly write about reflections? How hard could it be? Just walk up to a chrome bumper on a sunny day and shoot it, right? Maybe, a cliche’ shot of your dog’s reflection from a side view mirror of your car? I just didn’t see how a photograph of a reflection could be written about. Maybe, it could be tweeted about but not a 72 page eBook!
I had decided that there must be something to Chasing Reflections as I don’t think Craft and Vision would release mediocre publications. After reading Chasing Reflections, my respect for Eli’s work shot ten fold. My first mistake is that I did not truly “look” at the image. I merely glanced at an image so I did not “get it” and thought it to be boring. Chasing Reflections will help you understand her work and art in general.
Eli goes on in great detail about her process. Her muse is the “reflection”. They fascinate her and her images will fascinate you, when you really look at them. Don’t just glance at them, really study them. You will find many things going on in them. You could revisit the images time and time again and see something new.
After explaining the “process” of how she crafts an image. Eli goes on to explaining the techniques used to express her vision. Things such as choosing a focus point, choosing an angle, posters and people, playing with mirrors, when there is not enough light; they all paint a story and have a “decisive moment” element to them. And here I figured there was nothing to shooting a reflection… boy, was I wrong.
Do yourself a favour and pick up Chasing Reflections from Craft and Vision. It’s only $4 for the download when using the checkout code, REFLECT4. Chasing Reflection, really opened my eyes to the type of creativity we can do with our camera and a reflection. Thanks for the great book, Eli and Craft and Vision.
Topics: What's New | 1 Comment »
Redundancy
By Chris | July 12, 2010
Now, most of the photographers have probably seen the above video. I assume it’s made it’s way around the net by now. If you haven’t seen it yet, watch the above clip. It’s quite funny but very tragic at the same time for the bride and groom.
The physical humour initially makes us snicker and think, “Oh my, what a clutz!” that the photographer is. However, we then notice, especially after a second viewing, that the wedding photographer went into the fountain with BOTH of his camera’s. It’s not the fact that his small fortune in camera gear is probably toast. Camera gear can be replaced. The tragedy is that wedding moments can’t be “re-purchased”. The wedding photographer was wearing a belt with a pouch. I would assume( hopefully, I am wrong) that the pouch contained the only copy of CF cards that we was using that day.
I think we can learn a lesson from this unfortunate event of Mr. Clutzographer. We experienced photographers know about the importance of back up solutions. There are several ways to “back up” our files from our desk top but do we “back up” on the fly? After seeing the above video, I think it’s in our better interest to “back up” on the fly.
Many new pro-dSLR camera bodies come with the capability to run two compact flash cards at the same time. With a Nikon system, not sure about Canon but I assume it’s possible, the camera can be programmed to save the digital file to BOTH CF cards. In other words, you can create an instant “back up” directly on to the second CF card. This is a safer way to shoot in case one card is mal-functioning.
If I were to shoot a wedding, especially one with a near by water feature, I would shoot with two cards recording for sure. Then after each “segment” of the wedding, give one card to your assistant/second shooter or even your wife or husband. The point is to get the second copy of the files away from yourself in case you have an incident such as the clutzy wedding photographer in the above video. Then the second card should be transferred to a laptop or other device which could be safe guarded by a third person.
A good “back up” workflow would involve “redundancy on the fly”. At least two copies of the files should be immediately sent to different locations and possibly uploaded up to a cloud for safe keeping. If something un-for-seen does happen to you and your CF card, at least there are back ups of earlier segments in the wedding. The habit of keeping all the files of the day on one card is a risk that I would not take. For the sake of the bride and groom, let’s hope Mr. Clutzographer had a redundant system on the fly to salvage the wedding.
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It’s in the planning
By Chris | June 19, 2010
Sadly, I shot very little on our Whistler trip. It takes a lot of planning to do landscape shots. Planning I did not do. I had no idea what I wanted to shoot. I was hoping I would just stumble upon some shots. It didn’t happen. Also, with the very long days, the sweet light hours are very late and very early. I tried to get up early but my body had nothing to do with it. I slept in past sunrise everyday.
Being in Whistler in shoulder season had its limitations. That means it wasn’t ski season nor was it hiking season. There was mountain biking to do but with Trish’s fractured clavicle it was out of the question. The alpine area was still covered in snow and un-accessible to hike because the peak chair was closed. I have seen some photos of the alpine in peak summer with amazing views and flowers. August would be a perfect time to visit the alpine.
Since the Whistler alpine was not available, we thought we would try a hike to view a glacier at Joffre Lake. It’s a 400m walk to the lake which is beautiful. There is a glacier to view from the lake but I wanted to hike the 5k to get up close and personal with the glacier. However, the trail took a beating from old man winter and made the hike too scrambley for Trish. We didnt want her to slip and hurt her tender shoulder. So, we turned back.
The shots that I did take from the lake were lame. The mid day sun made for a beautiful view but the hard lighting was not working with the camera. The highlights would be blown out of the shadows too dark. Perhaps, I should have set up the tripod and taken 5 shots for an HDR but I didn’t. What I learned from Darwin Wigget blog post is that maybe a Neutral Density filter would have come in handy for what I was trying to achieve.
So, the only decent shot I am relatively happy with is the one above of Trish on the Peak 2 Peak gondola. The SB-800 flash was mounted to the camera with a 1/4 CTO gel velcro-ed to the flash. It’s not a fine art shot that I was hoping to capture on this little trip but I like the exposure done with the flash.
What I did learn from this trip is that a real good fine art landscape shot takes a lot of planning. It’s difficult, at least for me, to get an image that I am proud of on a whim. It takes detailed planning. With my next time off of work, I will have to ensure some better planning and research on capturing images.
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Quick update.
By Chris | June 7, 2010
Ooops! I got really busy making a living at my day job. That’s my excuse for the limited blogging and photographic activities. On the bright side, I have a new ‘out of town’ job with two weeks ON and two weeks OFF. I have my two weeks off starting Wednesday. I am really stoked about coming back home to see my friends and family.
This time off will also allow me to get my camera out for an orgy of photographica! Next week, my wife and I have a three night stay in Whistler booked. Originally, it was supposed to be a predominately a mountain biking trip. Unfortunately, Trish cracked her shoulder bone the other day while mountain biking so biking is off the list for Whistler. That means more time behind the lens. I really look forward to shooting some of BC’s most amazing scenery.
Topics: What's New | No Comments »
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